


Unfortunatley, he was carsick

by E_omo



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, Insecure Leo Valdez, Leo Valdez Being Leo Valdez, Leo Valdez is carsick, Leo valdez on a road trip, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Piper McLean & Leo Valdez Friendship, Post-The Heroes of Olympus, Road Trips, emetophobia warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 22:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30011913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_omo/pseuds/E_omo
Summary: Based off of the fact that in The Lost Hero, Leo told Piper that he gets carsick. I thought it would be interesting to see how that played out.
Kudos: 12





	Unfortunatley, he was carsick

**Author's Note:**

> As you may be able to tell, I am starting to branch out in fandoms and genres. I wrote this mostly because I have pretty bad Emetophobia that I am trying to get over and I feel that this is a good way to push myself. Writing it was torture but I am very proud of the end result and I figured I might as well share it. Enjoy!

Road trips suck, especially when you get carsick easily. This unfortunately, was the case for Leo Valdez, the son of Hephaestus, the repair boy, the one who works with machines all day. It was an ironic predicament to be in for sure. 

Currently, he was on a road trip with Percy, Annabeth, Jason, and Piper to California. They had spent half of the summer at Camp Half blood and were going to spend the rest of it at Camp Jupiter. Currently, Jason was driving with Piper on the passengers side. I was right behind Jason's seat next to Percy who was next to Annabeth by the other window. Annabeth was listening to music off an Ipod and Percy was playing something on a D.S. 

We were an hour or so into the trip and I felt horrible. My stomach was churning and my nausea was almost unbearable, so I decided to try and fall asleep, that always seemed to help. It took a while but I eventually did but of course, it didn’t last that long. If you have ever tried to sleep during a road trip, you may know exactly what I am talking about. Every bump or jostle woke me up, which makes it very hard to stay asleep for long. I kept repeating the fall asleep and wake up pattern until I actually drifted off for a while. 

When I woke up, we had stopped at a gas station. Jason pumped gas while the rest of us went inside to use the bathroom and get snacks. I was sure that I wouldn’t do too great if I ate anything so I only bought a sprite and a pack of mint gum since that always seemed to help. Once we all got back, Jason went in to do the same as we had just done and soon enough we were off again.

Everyone was talking and joking around now. They seemed to be in a better mood than I was, so of course, I stepped up my game. I talked along, cracked a few jokes and puns, and teased them. After a while, my nausea began to get worse than usual. I frantically got a piece of gum and chewed it. It helped a little, but not enough to make me any less miserable. 

A few minutes later, Annabeth said that she was going to try to sleep some more and I followed in her footsteps, saying the same. I managed to drift off eventually, only to have a nightmare, of course. I was reliving the day I killed my mom which really wasn’t what I needed at the moment. My dream kept repeating itself until I finally woke up. I sat up with a start and then remembered that I was in a car, traveling to California, extremely carsick. Nausea assaulted me almost immediately after I opened my eyes. Percy, turned to me, having felt me stir,

“Oh, good you’re up! Can you tell Annabeth and Jason that my knock-knock Jokes are not stupid.”

I swallowed back my nausea as best as I could,

“Depends, what’s the joke?”

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Who.”

“Who who?”

“I didn’t know you were an owl,” Percy said, grinning wildly, Annabeth rolled her eyes next to him, Jason chuckled and shook his head from the driver's seat. I tried to act natural,

“Percy, I’m sorry but that is the oldest most cliche joke out there, you gotta do something like this, Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Dwayne.”

“Dwayne who?”

“Dwayne the bathtub, i’m drowning.”

Jason laughed at that and Annabeth snickered, Percy cracked a bigger smile and turned to face Annabeth,

“Seriously? That gets you?” He then turned to me, “I have been trying to get her to laugh at one of my jokes for the past 5 minutes.”

Annabeth then retorted, “Percy, I love you but you are not that great at telling jokes,”

“Hey!” Percy said, looking offended, “Jason was laughing.”

I laughed at that which was a big mistake on my part. I threw up in my mouth and had a hard time swallowing it back down. Tasting the vomit made my nausea only that much worse. I guess you could tell because the second Annabeth looked at me, she knew something was wrong.

“Leo? You okay over there?”

I sat up straight, immediately trying to look fine,

“Yeah, why do you ask?” Piper was the only one who knew about my car sickness and I really didn’t want everyone else to know, I would never hear the end of it. Luckily, Piper was asleep so she couldn’t tell anyone at the moment. 

“You just looked panicked, and you’re acting strange.”

Percy was now looking at me too and I even caught Jason sneaking a few glances in the rearview mirror.

“Oh, yeah Leo you don’t look too good, have you eaten anything today?” Percy asked.

“Yeah, of course I… I had a donut before we left,” I lied.

“Okay…” Annabeth said skeptically, I could tell that she knew but she didn’t mention it, “Just let us know if you need anything.”

“I’m just tired that’s all,” I said, laying against my hand on the door of the car, “I should probably sleep some more,”

They both gave me skeptical looks but just nodded and went back to talking, this time in hushed voices, to try and let me sleep I suppose. I managed to drift off for maybe five minutes before I was woken up by a wild swerve in the car and a horn honking next to us.

“Sorry guys,” Jason said, “Something just tried to attack us but that semi truck hit it.”

I was still half asleep and all that I really could tell was that my nausea had gotten worse. 

“What even was that?” Piper’s voice cut through my daze, I guess she had woken up too.

“It looked like an empousa,” Annabeth cut in, “Percy and I have had plenty of experience with those things.” Percy nodded in agreement.

I groaned, not meaning to and clutched my stomach, with my horrible nausea and the swerving, I wasn’t feeling all that great to say the least. Percy looked over to me and said with urgency,

“Uh, Jason you might want to pull over.”

“Why?” Jason aked, clearly nervous for what Percy was about to say.

“I think Leo is about to blow chunks.” 

Piper turned to look at me and swore aloud, “Shit! I should have checked on you, do we have a bag or something?” She dug around anxiously. Jason turned on the hazard lights and tried to get to the shoulder as quickly as he could, but it was getting to be a little too slow for me. 

I could feel the dreadful feeling of vomit coming up and I couldn't swallow it down this time, there was too much. My cheeks swelled and I covered my mouth with my hand.

“Jason!” Percy yelled out, “Hurry!”

“I’m trying!” He yelled back right before he pulled off to the side and parked the car. 

I immediately threw open the door and proceeded to throw up all over the side of the road. I didn’t even un-buckle. Percy rubbed my back as I excreted whatever stomach contents I had in me. 

After what felt like eternity, I sat back and wiped my mouth with a napkin that Annabeth handed to me. 

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly, as I closed my door. Everyone was staring at me. 

“It’s okay you couldn’t help it,” Percy said. 

“Yeah, I really should have checked in on you, i’m sorry about that,” Piper said, staring at me concernedly.

“Wait, Leo, do you get carsick?” Annabeth asked, no hint that she was getting amusement out of this as I would have thought.

“Well… yeah,” I said, ashamed and embarrassed.

“Well good grief Leo, you should’ve told us sooner. We would have checked on you. No wonder you’ve been acting so odd,” Annabeth replied sympathetically. Percy reached behind us, pulled a water out of our cooler, and handed it to me. I thanked him and took a sip. Jason seemed to think for a second before saying.

“I’ll tell you what, we will stop by the next stop so you can freshen up and then we can pick up a few bags just in case, but I want you to tell us from now on when you need us to pull over, okay?” 

“Okay.” I said, nodding. With that, Jason put the car back into drive and we continued on. Surprisingly, no one even mentioned the irony, no one joked, no one laughed, and no one even made that big of a deal out of it which honestly surprised me, although it really shouldn’t have. They were always kind and supportive, yes Percy would probably poke fun at me for it later, but at this point, I didn’t care.


End file.
